This invention relates to the transfer of information over a distributed computer network. More particularly, this invention relates to a method and system for reliable and secure commercial communication over the Internet.
In the recent past, the electronic exchange of business information required businesses to establish proprietary electronic document interchanges (EDI) with its trading partners. EDI enables businesses to exchange information regarding common business transactions such as providing catalog information, requesting price quotations from its suppliers, issuing purchase orders and tracking delivery of ordered products. The information is contained in structured documents and is used in a wide range of industries to improve the efficiency of business operation.
Due to the extensive amount of information that must be exchanged, EDI requires reliable transmission infrastructure and robust computer networking capabilities to enable the exchange of vast amounts of information. For this reason it has been common practice to establish dedicated high speed communication links such as a leased T1 line between each trading partner. While such links are reliable and secure, they are also expensive to establish and maintain. Thus, while every business needs to establish EDI relationships with each of their trading partners to improve efficiencies, many small businesses have been unable to do so because of the cost. Indeed, the expense of establishing a T1 line can often run several thousands dollars per month and take many months of effort to set up. Thus, many small businesses are unable to justify the expense of converting from exchanging paper documents using the mail or similar delivery systems. Many small to medium size businesses are typically unable to afford the cost associated with participating in EDI simply because the volume of transactions it has with its trading partners is insufficient to justify the expense. In other instances, businesses do not use EDI because the prior art EDI systems do not readily scale to handle large numbers of participants without investing substantial sums of money to connect all of the business' trading partners. Accordingly, the use of EDI to exchange business documents has been limited to businesses that can justify the expense of maintaining a proprietary computer network between businesses and trading partners. Clearly, what is needed is a reliable, inexpensive system that enables businesses to participate in EDI even at lower volumes.
Further, many businesses have invested substantial sums of money to configure and maintain application programs that enable business to business electronic commerce. These application programs streamline operations relating to supply chain integration. Due to the inherent reliability of such networks, legacy B2B application programs are rarely capable of efficiently dealing with delayed delivery or loss of data in transit. Thus, while the Internet holds promise to lower the cost to participate in EDI, businesses have also been reluctant to port B2B applications to distributed networks because of the lack of control over the data once it leaves a company's proprietary network. This concern arises because data transmitted over the Internet may be lost or delayed in transit for an extended period of time. For example, studies have shown that between four and six percent of the transmissions over the Internet are lost at some point along the Internet transmission path. Many more messages can be delayed for an extended period of time if routed to a web server that is overloaded or that is not operating for a period of time. This inherent lack of reliability creates potential problems for both the data originator and the recipient.
By way of example, if a manufacturer uses an Internet-based EDI system to place an order with a supplier there is no guarantee that the message will not be dropped, lost or delayed for an extended period of time. When this occurs, the supplier will not send a confirmation indicating that the order was received and the manufacturer will be unable to determine if the message is lost or merely delayed. This inherent lack of reliability creates the potential problems for both the message originator and the intended recipient. By way of example, if a buyer issues an electronic order for a million items and the message is not timely delivered the buyer may think that an order has been placed but the seller will be unaware of the order. If the buyer and seller agree that the order is ‘lost’, a duplicate order could be generated. However, this raises the possibility that duplicate orders are being issued by the buyer and if the lost order is subsequently delivered (that is, delivery is merely delayed and not lost), the seller will receive two orders which is clearly undesirable. Unfortunately, this type of problem is inherent in the distributed nature of the Internet itself. Accordingly, when businesses attempt to port these legacy B2B application programs, to a distributed communication network such as the Internet, it is difficult to verify delivery of the information. This suggests that a mechanism is required to confirm both the transmission and the receipt of information transferred over the Internet. Unfortunately, many legacy B2B application programs designed for proprietary networks are not readily adaptable to respond to transmission related delays or information loss. For this reason both the sender and the recipient need to be able to track the delivery and verify the content of the information.
Even if the legacy B2B application programs are adapted for use with a distributed network environment, they are not well adapted to scaling from hundreds of trading partners to thousands. It is not uncommon for a business to generate hundreds of thousands of transactions in a single day. Thus, whatever system adapted by the business must be capable of scaling to handle millions of transactions on a daily basis. Accordingly, notwithstanding the advantages associated with the prior art EDI systems, a method and system that adapts B2B applications for transmission of valuable business information over the Internet in a secure and reliable manner is needed.
Another problem with using the Internet for EDI is the inherently insecure nature of the transmission. Specifically, information transmitted over the Internet is subject to being intercepted at various hops along the path between the sender of the message and the recipient. Even with encryption technology and secure socket layer (SSL) technology, information transmitted via the Internet is still subject to theft by third parties. Clearly, what is needed is a method and a system that enables the transfer of information over a non-proprietary distributed network, such as the Internet, and that is capable of guaranteeing the secure and timely delivery of messages.
More recently, electronic business transactions have adopted the central portal concept where customers or supplies use their browser to click into web pages resident on a server to transfer electronic data and conduct transactions. This concept works for “click speeds” where the transfer of information occurs in real time. However, the central portal concept does not scale to the environment where business application programs (that is, B2B application programs) operate automatically to transfer information between businesses at high data rates. Further, in the event of dispute, a third party intermediary or other mechanism is required to confirm both the transmission and the receipt of the information transfer as well as the content of the information itself. Accordingly, notwithstanding the advantages associated with the central portal for EDI applications, what is needed is a method and system that handles B2B application programs in a secure and reliable manner comparable to proprietary EDI networks but which readily scales to handle large numbers of participants.